Irregular
by dont-fear-the-reaper11
Summary: ir·reg·u·lar /iˈregyələr/ - Contrary to rule, deviating from a 'type'. Falling below an acceptable standard- this one was my favourite- imperfect. I was imperfect. Derek was imperfect. We were a messy combination.


Awkward snippets of how I would imagine Derek and Stiles' … er… _interactions_ would be, in a Sterek world.

P.S, written at 4am. I speak for all spelling/grammatical errors when I say je m'excuse.

*1*

I always thought Derek would have this secret sweet, affectionate side that I would miraculously uncover. It used to be something I daydreamt about, even before I knew he didn't hate me. After taking one look at his borderline terrifying persona, I knew that he had to be incredibly soft and mushy in actuality.

But the weird thing was that I couldn't find it for the life of me. It was wrong to call what Derek and I were doing a 'relationship'. It was completely inaccurate, because what was going on between us was irregular in every sense of the word. In fact, I had a list.

**Irregular**, as in the opposite of constant. Sometimes we saw each other days in a row, maybe even a couple weeks. But contrarily, other times, days or even a couple weeks were spent apart.

**Irregular**, lacking the casual-ity most relationships seemed to have. We were tense, uncomfortable, and uncertain more than half of the time. The comfortable, pleasant moments between us were so scarce that it's not worth mentioning.

**Irregular**, strange. Derek didn't seem to exhibit any sort of affection towards me, or anyone really, in any way, shape, or form. We didn't participate in couple-y activities, mostly because neither of us felt the need, and we never actually talked about what was going on.

**Irregular**, contrary to rule, deviating from a 'type'. It felt like we were so abnormal that we were breaking some sort of law. It seemed like we were struggling over a family-member-type relationship, yet there was enough sexual tension to fill a warehouse. Sexual tension infers couple-ville, but whatever convention couples followed, we absolutely did not. It wasn't even on purpose.

I wasn't sure what category this next one fell under, and part of me thought that it should be on its own with no label at all. The thing that bonded us in the first place was sleeping together.

Yes, sleeping. But not sex.

Lying there in the dark, outlining these deviations for the millionth time- had I added a few tonight?- I tried to remember how that even started. What had been the life-altering event that led us to slumbering side by side?

So close to remembering, yet my fleeting mind had already leapt to a new subject.

**Irregular**, falling below an acceptable standard- and this one was my favourite- _imperfect_. I was imperfect. Derek was imperfect. We were a messy combination, absolutely filthy; an undesirable pair in the very sense of the word. A rotting, dank, unhealthy connection was what we had. I'd always thought that equally disturbed people as a duo could help each other, but in the case of Derek and I, said connection was plain destructive.

I didn't pretend to have bigger issues than him. Mine were much less intense, with much less guilt involved. Every time I had the pleasurable opportunity to touch Derek, in only the purest, most innocent way might I add, I marveled at the fact that there was even anything to touch. When I thought of Derek Hale and his guilt, I imagined starving termites and a freshly carved oak picnic table. He must have been the nicest table before the 'mites arrived.

There was no Godly reason in my mind why sometimes I saw desire on his face, even though he did nothing to back up my observation. It was too recurring an event to pass it off as wishful thinking. The boy went out of his way to avoid touching me, for example, which in turn meant that I could never touch him either. Never mind that I found a way around it; opportunities were too infrequent to be satisfying.

Shutting my eyes tighter, I willed my internal photo reel to rotate, fast-forwarding to a place where Derek, his bed and I existed in the half of his house that wasn't destroyed. I would be as close to him as he would allow, and I would lie there trying to stay awake, and trying to listen to his breaths. I could never catch them, no matter how hard I listened. It was impossible. There was something entrancing about his breaths to me, because they made Derek seem human. He wasn't human, 97% of the time. Not to me, anyway.

In that moment when we existed together, certain things stood out. Derek Hale was one of those people that smelled good all the time. I wasn't sure how exactly he swung it, because I'd always associated werewolves with bad odours. Maybe because of the hair, who knows why. But he had this inebriating fragrance that clung to fabric, and just lying on his pillow, in his sheets, was almost like pressing your nose to his neck.

There were a lot more things that stood out, but the next biggest one after his scent was the wonder with which I would fill myself. It was a hopeless feat to describe what I wanted to describe, but I would always try to reassure myself. Lying next to Derek, attempting to concentrate on the rise and fall of his chest, wishing I could lean over drag my nose up his throat, and knowing I couldn't do either, made me wonder what exactly had happened to him. Sometimes I thought about how he'd only been slightly younger than I when Kate killed his family, and how that event alone couldn't account for how messed up it made him. I wondered if there was something else, or maybe more than one something else. It further made me wonder if I could ever ask him about it, "Derek, did something else happen other than you having a hand in killing your whole family and then your sister, or was that it more than one thing?", and it made me wonder why I would never get an answer (or even survive asking the question).

I wondered about his life before that hunter. Was he like this before? Maybe the fact that he was born a wolf and was forced to alienate himself by his family to avoid being found out had made him so recluse. Finally, I wondered why he even let me into a section, no matter how tiny, of his world. This wasn't just a house, or a bed he was letting me in. This was the house that his family burnt alive in. A glitch in his sanity that he confined himself to, and probably a secret that he didn't want to talk about. Yet here I was, invading it.

Why?

*2*

In my defense, two months of Derek-less, restless sleep had made me totally irrational. I was upset, I was frustrated, and I was utterly _exhausted_.

I slammed the door to my Jeep shut, harder than I needed to, and meant to shout Derek's name angrily.

"Derek." I called, my hand still on my car. My voice had broken somewhere in the middle of that word, and instead of sounding menacing, it just sounded desperate.

It didn't take long before I saw his figure through the hazy darkness, standing just outside the front door. Seeing him for the first time in months, I was startled. Maybe I'd partly thought he wouldn't have come out at all, and now that he had, I wasn't completely sure what I thought I would do. How would I even begin to explain myself?

_Yeah. So it's been sixty-two days exactly since we've slept in the same bed or have even seen each other, what the Hell? How do you even expect me to sleep? I'm exhausted here. Don't be so selfish, I need this. Now let me in._

That would go over well.

I was almost entirely sure I'd thought that all in my head, but when I made my way right over to him, he didn't say a word, just opened the door and walked through it, leaving it open for me as well. There was no way he could have just read me that well, I was certain that in him, there wasn't an ounce of empathy. He was too imprisoned.

Whatever anxiety had been filling me, thinking of what could have possibly been my first case of unconscious, verbal diarrhea, it was whisked away violently when I collapsed next to Derek. Yes, there it was, the filthy, self-loathing feeling I got whenever we were around each other. But I couldn't quite decide if it overpowered the endorphans that tore through my limbs. I spent nights trying to remember this feeling, recreate it somehow, and it came so naturally now. I had the overwhelming urge to touch him, but I just lay there, my eyelids sagging so quickly that it worried me. How deep had I fallen, anyway?

*3*

The tragic day came when I used the "L" word. I always thought I could control myself when it came to this stuff, especially since these circumstances were irregular. _And_ especially since I expected to be emotionally torn to shreds, if not physically, but the subject of my fancy. The subject that I knew was completely incapable of any form of compassion, and would be repelled by me if I tried to show some.

We were just standing. A foot and a half apart in one of the decomposing rooms of the Hale house, and it was such a bright moon that I could see him. He had been regarding me with an intensity that made me feel like I was bleeding uncontrollably all over the floor, and I kept dabbing at my skin where I could swear I felt warm, red liquid staining me. It was running out of me as if late for an appointment.

Of course my skin was actually dry and bloodless, and Derek was waiting for me to answer whatever he'd asked. It must've been important, too, because he wasn't blinking. I wasn't sure what exactly to say, because in all honesty I'd become engulfed in his widened pupils, and temporarily lost my sense of hearing. How cheesy.

He repeated his question. Maybe I'd said all of that out loud as well. I really had to control what I vocalized. It was like my verbal dam had sprung a leak that no amount of gum could repair.

As I thought about what he asked me, I remembered the day's events. Mainly the surprise party for my 18th that had been involuntarily sprung on me. As Scott's reputation gained 80 pounds of muscle and flowing blond hair, mine seemed to have flourished as well, although I did nothing to maintain it. I snuck out of that party as soon as I could, realizing that no one would notice. Honestly I preferred it that way. No one had even listened to my request to make it a simple occasion.

I heard my name from directly in front of me and had to regroup. How could I answer such a vague question? Such an obvious question.

Peering back at the caves in his irises, I waited a few moments. I knew what I wanted to say. He was fully aware that we both knew his visit to Beacon Hills was temporary. And although I'd only recently learned that he had been smack in the middle of a University semester when Laura had come here, I figured he'd had some sort of life before coming back to California.

So if I knew this was all very temporary, what _was_ I still doing?

A very good question, indeed.

Such an obvious answer, too, that I wanted to laugh. But instead of laughter, I said another thing. A very, very bad thing that I should have revised before stating. Maybe I hadn't because I thought he knew it was obvious too. I should have known better, because hadn't he lectured Scott on being incapable of truly loving someone due to his young age?

Oh well. The ship had sailed in terms of revising; I'd said it.

I found myself wondering what would happen next. The answer was never officially articulated in my mind, but I did brace myself for the impending doom.

My back was against the wall now. It hadn't been there moments before. Only vaguely, I wondered if it would even support my weight if I leaned back into it. The theory was untestable, however, with another body holding mine up. I hadn't flinched at the contact that seemed to happen faster in my mind than it really did, and it took me a while to figure out why.

Yes, this was good. Dare I say heavenly. As soon as I had some time to calm down, I realized it was happening very slowly. In a smooth, slow motion, I had been backed up into the wall and became tongue-deep in a mouth that wasn't mine. The transition between not touching Derek to this was almost too much. As I tried to adjust, I realized with a start that one of my hands was gripping the waist of the front of his jeans. I guess I didn't need that much time after all.

I had a sudden flash of what Derek said to me the minute I showed up here tonight. _Shouldn't you be at Scott's?_ he'd asked me. Of course he remembered my birthday. And I supposed it wasn't so coincidental that he hadn't mentioned it to me. Could I count that as a hint of compassion? Empathy? Affection? He had paid attention. That's what it was, wasn't it?

So I was forced to come to the conclusion, exactly at that moment, that I had seen desire on that sharpened face. I was wrong about why it never escalated. It wasn't just because his visit was temporary. It occurred to me now that this was the first time Derek had really voluntarily touched me. After a simple few seconds, I realized that the only difference between last time and this time was my age. _My age_. Derek hadn't even been legal yet when he was with Kate. The burning had been a scarring enough event to give him a complex, certainly. _Grow up and know the person you're 'in love' with_, I could practically hear him preaching.

There was a hand on my abdomen, my t-shirt bunching in the angle his wrist made with his forearm. How long had I been pining, for heaven's sake? This was some twisted version of Turkish Delight, and I gorged myself. With so much contact, I could smell the perfume of his skin directly, and I wondered if I made him feel as high as he made me. We were stumbling through the dark- I was stumbling, Derek was navigating- and I was in such a flurry that I didn't even notice the flight of stairs we took until we were horizontally reclined. Derek, his bed and I. Only I wasn't tired this time. I was exhilarated and relieved that I'd finally drilled down to the mushy insides of the boy pushing me down into the soft covers.

And even if I was utterly wrong in my theory of how I discovered those insides, I would never find out. Normal people talked about these things, but we were irregular, after all.

*le fin*


End file.
